Thompson: Forgo China trip until 'big, ugly mess' cleared upWASHINGTON (AllPolitics, May 23) -- Republicans are keeping up the pressure on President Bill Clinton to explain questions about possible links between 1996 Democratic campaign contributions and decisions to share U.S. satellite technology with the Chinese government.In the weekly GOP radio address Saturday, Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., said "the administration needs to provide Americans with direct and full answers to important questions about all of this.""How did it come about that highly sensitive technical information was given to the Chinese? Why did the president ignore the national security experts who counseled against this deal? What damage has been done to our national security?" Goss asked."We know that Chinese officials chose to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 1996 re-election of the Clinton administration. What we don't know is what they expected to gain from that investment," Goss said.Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., in an interview on CNN's "Evans and Novak," called the questions about transferring technology to China a "big, ugly mess," and he said Clinton should seriously reconsider his trip there, scheduled for next month."I'm more concerned that if he goes, he's going to ... make agreements to transfer additional technology. It's been reported that he's thinking in those terms," said Thompson, who chairs a Senate committee that has been investigating 1996 campaign fund-raising irregularities.